lest you think that I've been abducted by aliens,

I haven't. I've been lazy. It's summer, and I can't seem to motivate to do anything. Except sew. I've become obsessed. I decided to try quilting, and it's totally addictive. Not needing or wanting any quilts for my own apartment has not stopped me from making them. I've finished a baby quilt and then started my current project, which is a set of placemats, towels, potholders, and napkins for a friend of mine who's getting married.


Unlike knitting, where you can basically do whatever you need to do with a starter kit and the equipment is not particularly varied, quilting really can't be done perfectly without an investment in some special stuff -- namely, a rotary cutter, a quarter-inch foot, and a walking foot (I haven't gotten brave enough to try freehand quilting with an embroidery/darning foot). I've been tediously machine-quilting these placemats with parallel lines about 1/4 inch apart. It is pretty boring, but it looks great! And it's less boring than hand-quilting probably would be.


I have discovered that really beautiful fabric is expensive. This Joel Dewberry fabric for the placemats, for example. And rotary cutter blades are expensive. In fact, the crazy cost of quilting supplies has made me feel a little less guilty about knitting supplies: a quilt is much more expensive than a sweater to make (unless you're making a tiny quilt or you're using only quiviut yarn or something).

Oh, and quilting is much messier than knitting. My apartment is a gigantic mess right now. There are little scraps of thread and fabric everywhere. It's nice that even when you're knitting a big afghan or something you can still pack it up and put it neatly away if you need to.

Okay, off to sew some more!